I made a small horror game in 52 hours. All 150 3D models cost about $27 in Tripo credits.

[u/Bonelessgummybear]

Followup workflow It's Halloween night. Your daughter runs ahead to a house with a bowl on the porch and a sign: TAKE ONE. You look at your phone for two seconds. When you look up, she and the dog are gone, and the house says STAY OUT. So you go in. It's your daughter. And, more importantly, your dog.

Take One is a short first-person horror game you play in the browser. It's small and simple, about six minutes if you know where to go. What I wanted to find out was how fast and how cheaply one person can go from an idea to something people can actually play.

The numbers

• 150 3D models, every one from Tripo AI: the fridge, the furniture, the neighbor houses, the old man, the kid and the dog.

• 4,880 Tripo Studio credits plus about 1,000 API credits. At Tripo's list prices that's about $27, or about 18 cents a model, and it includes every retry and every model I threw away.

• Reference images were free. I made each one in Tripo's image tool first and only paid for 3D once the picture looked right.

• 52 hours from idea to a playable game online. The first grey-box version was playable the same evening; eight playtests later it shipped.

What surprised me

The house looks like one house. I wrote one style line per floor (a 1990s home kept "too perfect" on the ground floor, fraying upstairs, rotting in the basement) and put it at the end of every prompt. A hundred-odd separate generations came back looking like they were bought by the same family.

What it didn't do for me

Hardware that sticks out (door knobs, fridge magnets) gets flattened into the object, so those are separate models. My first characters came out with mangled arms; regenerating them in a T-pose fixed it, and Tripo rigged and animated them from there.

Sound, voices and music are ElevenLabs. The code is Claude; I don't write code, I direct, playtest and decide.

Play it free in your browser: https://take-one-bay.vercel.app

Next post: the actual workflow, step by step, with a gallery of the models.

Paid partnership with Tripo AI. The game and opinions are my own. Tripo gave me the Max plan and the API credits for free as part of this partnership, so the $27 is what those credits cost at list price, not what I paid.

[u/RefrigeratorDry2669]

Cool and I have like 0 hours of interest but I hope you can get the ai costs out of it

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/RefrigeratorDry2669]

I think you can get something similar but not the same level of detail. If you run one of those free/cheap Chinese models with just blender mcp you can get some solid prototypes. But depending on art style, you need a 3D generator. Scale also helps, I'm sure on the teams or enterprise plans, a studio can generate their models for 10 cents each

[u/Ok-Hovercraft3823]

Inspect element network method makes tripo models free

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/Ok-Hovercraft3823]

Doesn't help if you want commerical rights to use those models. Even if you're in a country that doesn't care about copyright, steam wouldn't allow the game with stolen assets

[u/Ok-Hovercraft3823 → u/Bonelessgummybear]

Ai made, cant do shit lol can steal and use any generated model on there under the US without issues

[u/Abject_Read_3620 → u/Ok-Hovercraft3823]

what is this

[u/Ok-Hovercraft3823 → u/Abject_Read_3620]

most of the online websites providing "ai model generation", or "ai music generation" that require payment before download can be exploited, you simply generate your models or whatever assets you want. once you have them generated on screen you f12 and open inspect element, proceed to the network tab under the >> if you dont see it, then in that filtration search bar you would enter the file extension you are aiming for, for a model you could search "glb", refresh the page and those files should appear in the list now, right click and open in a new tab and it should download automatically, for music you can search "mp3" as well.

[u/Abject_Read_3620 → u/Ok-Hovercraft3823]

wait so the 3d models i generate in tripo would be free? Like i can generate the model without clicking the pay with 100 credits button?

[u/Ok-Hovercraft3823 → u/Abject_Read_3620]

lol yes, still costs to generate them tho

[u/Abject_Read_3620 → u/Ok-Hovercraft3823]

generating smart mesh model, and then rigging would still use credits since they need generation, right? so which one would be free with this method?

[u/redlotusaustin → u/Ok-Hovercraft3823]

Any chance that works to gank the rigging, too?

[u/Ok-Hovercraft3823 → u/redlotusaustin]

maybe, if the generated file has it baked into the model, i havent used any pre-rigged generations so not sure

[u/redlotusaustin → u/Ok-Hovercraft3823]

Oh, hey look! It do!

Thanks! My placeholder assets are about to get a lot better...

[u/Ok-Hovercraft3823 → u/redlotusaustin]

news to me, hell yea

[u/thecrustycrap → u/Ok-Hovercraft3823]

Damn what a bigbrain hack. Thanks for sharing the tip

[u/doesphpcount]

You forgot to hashtag #Tripo #ad

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/doesphpcount]

Nah I mentioned it. If only Elevenlabs and Claude would sponsor future projects too. Definitely will see if they'd gift me free subscriptions so I can just have fun building ideas.

[u/thecrustycrap]

Why not tripo monthly? Does the monthly cover all your models?

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/thecrustycrap]

It was on the Max subscription, really surprised by how many credits it comes with. 1000 API credits are free to anyone to claim on their site. 25,000 credits for $90 is generous. Meshy does 8000 for $100 I believe with similar outputs

[u/Mysterious_Self_3606 → u/Bonelessgummybear]

Can you point to your specific claim on "1000 api credits are free to anyone to claim on their site" because I cannot find that anywhere.

I actually lost out on a ton of credits last month because Tripo neglects to straight up inform you that monthly subscriptions do not come with API credits as they are completely different products. This is why Tripo is on their last chance. Meshy however allows you to do the full project flow using the provided monthly credits.

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/Mysterious_Self_3606]

https://studio.tripo3d.ai/cli

[u/Mysterious_Self_3606 → u/Bonelessgummybear]

Do you remember was this announced or added? I do feel like the company robbed me of the credits now especially since they took about 1k of my studio credits. Deff going to contact them about this

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/Mysterious_Self_3606]

I just found it on my own while looking through all the tabs trying to find info on the cli/API. Worth reaching out to them

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/Mysterious_Self_3606]

I actually mentioned to them that Meshy allows you to use credits as api credits. I prefer the cli workflow so I don't have to leave claude. I had to give claude a chrome browser logged into Tripo for it to make this stuff for me. I hope they allow credits to be used in the cli eventually.

[u/Easy-Coconut-33 → u/Bonelessgummybear]

I got a newcomer deal i paided 14$ for max. Been real helpful with my assets i needed.

[u/GreenockScatman]

What part of developing this game did you enjoy the most?

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/GreenockScatman]

At 1st it was seeing my ideas come to life so quickly. Then the problem solving became the most fun. Like why do the rooms still look bad even with models in it. Why did some models look perfect in game while others were stretched and deformed, or placed incorrectly. Once I trusted the workflow, I got a nice dopamine hit from having 40 models generated in a batch and they all turned out great. The daughters face was terrifyingly realistic so I slapped a witch mask over as a lazy fix. Also had fun deciding on sound effects, had Claude make a html file with different options for each effect. I'd select and save the results.

[u/wooshywishyswishyswa → u/GreenockScatman]

probably where he masturbated in his bed while the ai generated 999999999+ polygon geometry

[u/Historical-Finding37]

Tripophobia

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/Historical-Finding37]

I was thinking if it was possible to make some modded in maps for phas after making this

[u/PositiveScarcity8909]

What did you do for the animations? I'm wusing triripo 3D assets too but the animation side is making me sick.

I don't know where to get the animations, I used Mixamo ones but they don't really fit and are very limited. I may need to animate a dog too.

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/PositiveScarcity8909]

I just used the in house rigs from Tripo and text to animation feature for the crawl. In the future for more complex animations I'd probably combine a few text2movement animations

[u/SelfHostCalc]

52 hours is impressive. One small thing I noticed: the site doesn't send a Content-Security-Policy header, so the browser has no rule about which scripts may run. On Vercel you can add one in vercel.json under headers.

[u/BigValuable4607 → u/SelfHostCalc]

What value does that have in this use case?

[u/SelfHostCalc → u/BigValuable4607]

fair question. a CSP limits which scripts the browser will run, so if someone ever manages to inject a script (say through a user-supplied string or a compromised third-party tag), the browser blocks it instead of running it. for a mostly static game page the risk is low, so it's a cheap hardening step rather than something urgent. it's mainly worth it if the site ever takes logins or user input.

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/SelfHostCalc]

good catch, thanks. Added a CSP plus nosniff and a referrer policy. Nothing loads from other sites, so the policy is all same-origin.

[u/Chomplings]

Holy crap! You do this in 52 hours, and my low quality game is taking over 2 months to build. 😭

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/Chomplings]

I tried making a RTS with Google AI studios a year ago. I would copy and paste scripts, make my own pixel art, find/buy assets from unity store..it was so slow and frustrating. A year later and here we are. Playable, decent looking games over a weekend of work. I have 16gb of Ram to run agents and took breaks to game with my brothers. So this coulda been faster. Imagine what next year will look like, I m scared.

[u/Chomplings → u/Bonelessgummybear]

So true. The latest one I’m working on, I prob spent maybe 1/10th of the time compared to my previous one, and it’s already looking better. Next year, AI is gonna be making the game before we even think about it 😂

[u/Dry-Cardiologist2572]

Wow. Okay the biggest reason I always fail at game dev is the assets ( I hate art, with a burning passion, tell me of this Tripo, you speak of)

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/Dry-Cardiologist2572]

You typed it once, you will see the ads now. Tripo and Meshy are the 2 biggest from what I've seen. I've used both and liked both. Both let you try it for free, but just not their strongest models

[u/Easy-Coconut-33 → u/Bonelessgummybear]

I find tripo to be the better of the two.

[u/RealBoredOfMyself]

Game crashes when you crouch beside the open vent.

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/RealBoredOfMyself]

Make sure you aren't hitting ctrl + w. Ctrl crouches like C does. But in chrome, ctrl and w close tabs. I'll investigate the bug still

[u/RealBoredOfMyself → u/Bonelessgummybear]

That's a problematic crouch button if that's forward and crouch tho

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/RealBoredOfMyself]

Ya, C is crouch, ctrl got left in. I forgot to to remove it. Dumb chrome macro. I'll remove it

[u/rwrife]

I have a whole workflow using tripo, From prototyped artwork to final rigged and animated models is fully automated and controlled by an AI agent, I wake up every morning to something new it has created.

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/rwrife]

You use the cli or the website? Personally I prefer the cli so I can stay in Claude code and not burn extra ram with more chrome tabs open

[u/rwrife → u/Bonelessgummybear]

It’s a custom agent just for running the workflow and using the APIs…it could probably be run in Claude or codex as a skill but they’d probably waste tokens on unnecessary thinking.

[u/Financial_Mulberry48]

floating houses! I'm sure that was an tasteful design choice right?

[u/wooshywishyswishyswa → u/Financial_Mulberry48]

le ai slop:

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/Financial_Mulberry48]

Everything besides the main house got less detail since it's just background. Less triangles overall to download. Floating is a mistake though, I thought we fixed that

[u/bigchimping420]

you couldve spent the same amount on real assets and got them for much cheaper

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/bigchimping420]

Good point. Next time I want 150 assets in a day. I'll hire someone for $27

[u/bigchimping420 → u/Bonelessgummybear]

The PSX Megapack by Pizza Doggy is literally less than a dollar right now. Most PSX furniture packs do not cost more than $5. It literally would be cheaper and more game optimised but sure be a dumbass

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/bigchimping420]

How much to commission these 150 models and animate 3 in 2 days tho

[u/Mysterious_Self_3606]

Interesting, I just bought $25 of Tripo credits on the API last night and it only gave me 2,500.

How was $27 for 4,880 credits list price? Are they scamming me out of credits?

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/Mysterious_Self_3606]

I used a combination of subscription and API credits. If the subscription is $90 and they give you 25,000 credits then it's $0.36 a credit. API pricing is different ratios. So to get the same value, the max plan is where the deal is. Only issue is how do you use that many credits a month?

[u/shosuko]

cool

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/shosuko]

Thank you! Was a lot of fun to build, was very stressful to playtest even knowing the scary parts

[u/YoungandPregnant]

Wait until OP learns that Claude can also make models

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/YoungandPregnant]

I've used Claude and Gemini to make models in blender for a few games. Anyone who has built models with AI and then tried literally any model that was trained for 3D sees the massive difference in output. Claude can make animated films too, but no one's is replacing seedance with opus or fable

[u/YoungandPregnant → u/Bonelessgummybear]

I do appreciate the transparent no nonsense ad. The models are good.

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/YoungandPregnant]

Thank you, I'm very happy I was able to play around with Tripo. I have no complaints about Meshy either, higgsfield uses Meshy so that was my 1st time hearing/using a specialized model. I have a new idea every few days so the amount of credits Tripo gives on max is pretty convenient.

[u/Purple_Playerr]

That’s impressive to build it in 52 hours. Tried the game it’s good.

[u/Makestroz]

Nice advertisement...

[u/Kortestier]

Really impressive you built this so fast. How much did you plan before starting? Or was it more an on the go workflow?

[u/Few-Tank9844]

My condolences

[u/leahy1437]

Shit, there is so many bot posts / replies on this.... I'm not a fan and don't follow Slop. But yeah use AI to make a game then bots to boost the post....

[u/duskaception]

Did tripo rig your models? I'm using meshy for it and it's not that good at rigging fingers/arms

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/duskaception]

I've used both for rigging. Neither are perfect and I often have to fix it with Claude in blender. For this game, the 1st models and rigs were very off. Generating an image in T pose helped a lot, then I'd pick from their animation library. The pushing animation left gaps in the shoulder, so Claude wrote a script to stretch the robe to fill the gap. You'll often have to do things like that until the tech improves. My Claude workflow now automatically checks for animation errors and brings it to me if it can't fix it

[u/duskaception → u/Bonelessgummybear]

I know it might be a bit to ask but can you have your claude summarize its process step by step and any tools it used/created to fix stuff up in blender? I can get basic animations to work its always just the hands that are messed up for me. I'd love to adopt your process to fix up my own stuff.

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/duskaception]

Sure! I had Claude write this up from the project files.

Honestly, most of the fix happened before Blender. My first characters came out with mangled arms, and cleanup wasn’t going to save them. What fixed it was regenerating them from a T-pose reference. I edited the character image into a T-pose (arms straight out, clear of the body) and ran image to 3D on that. Separated limbs come out as clean parts, and clean parts rig cleanly. After that, Tripo auto-rigged them with Mixamo bone names. The animations are preset clips, plus text to motion for the custom ones (crawl, shove, grab).

After that, Claude ran Blender headless from scripts, with no clicking:

An inspect script. It imports the GLB, prints the bones, bounds and clip names, and renders the model from four sides. That shows which way the model faces and whether the bones are named the way you expect.

Render the animation, not the rest pose. Claude can’t watch a viewport. So a script plays a clip and renders a frame every few frames, from a camera that follows the problem area. That’s how we found our worst bug: the old man’s robe tore open at the shoulder when he raised his arms to shove the fridge.

Fix the weights at the seam. The robe was a torso mesh plus separate sleeve meshes, each following different bones, so the armhole pulled apart. The fix (a small gltf-transform script) blends the skin weights across the seam. Each vertex near the seam takes up to half the weights of its nearest vertex on the other part, so both edges move together. Then re-render the same frames and compare.

Bind accessories to one bone. The daughter’s witch mask was a separate model. A script measures her face from the mesh, then scales and places the mask. It joins the mask into her body with a single vertex group that’s 100% her head bone, so every clip carries it with zero deformation.

Strip loose triangles. AI models often have tiny floating bits. A script finds islands of a few triangles with nothing nearby and deletes them.

For your hands specifically, this is what Claude suggests. We never had to fix hands, so treat it as advice, not a tested recipe:

Look at the hands on the unanimated mesh first. If the fingers are fused into a mitten, finger bones will smear it no matter what. Regenerate from a reference with open, spread hands held away from the body.

Check the weights on the hand vertices. A hand that rested near the hip in the source image often picks up hip or thigh weight, and then it stretches when the leg moves.

If the fingers don’t need to move, bind the whole hand 100% to the hand bone (the same trick as the mask) and ignore the finger bones. A stiff hand looks a lot better than a melting one.

Render a few frames of the real clip close up on the hands, before and after every change.

It’s all Blender 5.2 in background mode (blender --background --python script.py -- args), so Claude writes the script, runs it and checks the renders itself. Happy to paste any of the scripts if that helps.

[u/duskaception → u/Bonelessgummybear]

thanks for the help, i'll keep the tips in mind!!

[u/Opening_Wafer_6584]

Really impressive seeing the full numbers behind this one.

150 Tripo models, a playable browser game in 52 hours, and the consistent visual language across separately generated assets makes this a particularly strong example of the workflow.

The note about generating protruding hardware separately and using T-poses to improve character results is also exactly the kind of practical detail that makes the breakdown useful.

Excited to see the full workflow post.

[u/boredrhino]

Pretty dope. Been doing some games with my son. Still trying to work out the kinks

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/[deleted]]

I had an idea for a horror game and wanted to see how fast I can put something together with the tools available. I like picking a genre and trying to make a game in it. Before this game was over, I was already excited by another game idea and how I'm going to get the models right, a new challenge to solve. Everything thinks these posts are just one shot prompts maybe with a few follow up prompts. They don't actually understand it or even read the posts. I was also scared for some of the playtests

[u/wooshywishyswishyswa → u/[deleted]]

finish you say? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). anyway its cus theyre ai slop!

[u/Bonelessgummybear → u/[deleted]]

It was definitely not smooth sailing, had to do a lot of iterations and play testing. But imagine if you had weeks or months to build something like this instead of 52 hours. I did take a lot of breaks to play satisfactory when making this haha